Page:Pocahontas, and Other Poems.djvu/121

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LADY JANE GREY. 105

Grave Roger Aschara's gaze Is lix'd on thee with fond amaze ; Doubtless the sage doth marvel deep, That, for philosophy divine,

A lady could decline

The pleasure 'mid yon pageant-train to sweep, The glory o'er some five-barr'd gate to leap, And, in the toil of reading Greek,

Which many a student flies, Find more entrancing rhetoric Than fashion's page supplies.

Ah, sweet enthusiast ! happier far for thee Had'st thou thy musing intellectual joy Thro' life indulg'd without alloy,

In solitary sanctity, Nor dar'd ambition's fearful shrift, Nor laid thy shrinking hand on Edward's fatal gift.

The crown ! the crown ! It sparkles on thy brow, I see Northumberland with joy elate, And low thy haughty sire doth bow,

Honouring thy high estate, She, too, the austerely beautiful, whose eye

Check 'd thy timid infancy,

Until thy heart's first buds folded their leaves to die, Homage to her meek daughter pays : Yet, sooth to say, one fond embrace,

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